End-to-end service creation, management, and orchestration in mobile networks

A computing device in a mobile network service delivery system, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• memory in electronic communication with the one or more processors;
• a service creator application programming interface (API) stored in the memory for facilitating interactions between the network service delivery system and a plurality of computing systems respectively associated with a plurality of different service creators;
• a mobile network infrastructure API stored in the memory for facilitating interactions between the network service delivery system and infrastructure underlying a mobile network associated with a customer and having diverse domains comprising one or more of private or public cloud computing infrastructure utilized to implement an access network or core network of the mobile network;
• and
• one or more hardware-based non-transitory computer-readable storage devices having computer-executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing device to
• operate an online repository storing software libraries of combinations of virtualized network functions operable for instantiating an end-to-end service across the diverse domains;
• provide composition tools over the service creator API with which service creators compose the combinations of virtualized network functions stored in the software libraries;
• implement a service creation entity to create the end-to-end service from the combinations of virtualized network functions in the software libraries;
• interoperate with a deployment environment in the mobile network, the deployment environment being virtually isolated in the mobile network and the interoperation comprising accessing at least one of customer rules and policies, accessing customer resource managers, and possessing rights and permissions pertaining to the deployment environment;
• and
• install the created end-to-end service in the deployment environment of the mobile network using the mobile network infrastructure API.

A computer-implemented method for distributing network services over a communications network from a network service delivery system, comprising:

• storing recipes for network services in a repository, the recipes received from service creators, each recipe comprising a combination of network functions that instantiates a respective service in a mobile network associated with a customer when deployed in a deployment environment that is virtually isolated in the mobile network and which comprises infrastructure underlying the mobile network, the mobile network infrastructure comprising a plurality of diverse domains;
• exposing recipe-based network services in a catalog that is accessible on a user interface (UI) supported on the network service delivery system;
• in response to selection of a network service from the catalog, remotely deploying the selected network service from the network service delivery system to the deployment environment of the mobile network infrastructure to instantiate the selected service on the mobile network;
• and
• providing lifecycle management (LCM) and orchestration from the network service delivery system for the instantiated network service across each of the diverse domains of the mobile network infrastructure to implement the instantiated network service as an end-to-end network service in the deployment environment of the mobile network, wherein the providing of LCM and orchestration includes interoperating with a deployment environment comprising accessing at least one of customer rules and policies, accessing customer resource managers, and possessing rights and permissions pertaining to the deployment environment.